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South Asia Investor Review is focused on reporting, analyzing and discussing the economy and the financial markets of countries in South Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. For investors looking to invest in emerging markets beyond BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), this blog is designed to help international investors looking to learn about investing in South Asia with focus on Pakistan. Riaz has another blog called Haq's Musings at http://www.riazhaq.com

Expectations Rise For Economic Rebound in Pakistan

Shares in the Karachi Stock Exchange 100 Index trade at 9.6 times reported earnings, the lowest in Asia excluding Japan, after the gauge rose 21 percent in 2009, according to Bloomberg.

Dollar-denominated debt sold by Pakistan returned 86.4 percent so far this year, more than any of the 45 emerging markets tracked by New York-based JPMorgan and 19 developed countries followed by Merrill Lynch & Co.

Aberdeen Asset Management Plc in London is bullish about Pakistan because the country is a beneficiary of international support. The U.S. House voted on June 11 to triple economic and development aid and to increase military assistance to stabilize a country vital to the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

While the US aid announcement attracts the attention of investors, the fact is that the Pakistani global diaspora's remittances to Pakistan are far larger than any foreign aid packages. Over 7 billion dollars have already been received in the first eleven months (July-May) of the current fiscal year 2008-09, according to APP.

Foreign direct investment in Pakistan declined by 8 percent to $3.04 billion, compared with $3.31 billion in the year-earlier period, according to Reuters.

In local currency, Pakistan's exports during July-April (2008-2009) were Rs.1,147,435 million (about $14 billion) versus Rs.938,428 million during the corresponding period of last year, showing an increase of 22.27 percent, according to Federal Bureau of Statistics. But the rupee decline against dollar has more than offset any increase in exports.

“We are positive,” said Edwin Gutierrez, who helps oversee $4.5 billion of global emerging-market debt at Aberdeen Asset Management Plc in London and added Pakistan dollar bonds to his funds earlier this year. “It was pretty clear that the international community is supporting Pakistan and providing it with a decent amount of money.”

An important source of investments in Pakistan are the Islamic nations of Asia and the Middle East. While the Islamic finance is still early in its early development stage, I see it as a crucial vehicle to ensuring in the future that significant part of the wealth of Muslim investors is invested with Muslim businesses in Muslim nations to help them develop. Already, the biggest foreign direct investors in Pakistan are Muslims from Dubai, Malaysia and the Middle East.

APP reported that Malaysia topped the list of investors making Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Pakistan during first six month of year 2008, according to data released by Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Foreign Direct Investment during the first five months of current financial year reached US$ 1.8 billion registering an increase of 1.5 percent, export reached to US$ 8.2 billion with a growth of 20 percent and foreign remittance at 2.9 billion registered an impressive increase of 15pc.

The May Bank of Malaysia made the biggest investment of US$ 907 million in banking sector followed by Saudi Arabia with an investment of US$ 750 million in steel sector and UAE with an investment of US$ 500 million in power sector in Pakistan.

The global economic meltdown has not deterred the foreign investors, including Malaysians, from investing in Pakistan, as Pakistan’s economy showed extreme resilience and defied the economic recession with registering growth in FDIs, Export and Foreign Remittance.

The signs of an economic rebound in Pakistan are more visible today, bringing new investors and businesses to Pakistan.

Here's a CNN report on Pakistani city of Sialkot which manufactures musical instruments, surgical equipment and sports goods:

Which cities can boast more than a dozen bagpipe factories? Edinburgh? Glasgow? How about, Sialkot, Pakistan?

Sialkot is located in north-east Pakistan, some 125 kilometers from the capital Lahore. Legend has it that the city started making bagpipes during the British Raj, when a Scottish businessman came to town and set up a factory.

More than a century later Sialkot is one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of bagpipes, with more than a dozen bagpipe factories, both big and small.

The bagpipe business became so successful that manufacturers started making and exporting other specialty items - including staples of American culture such as vintage basketballs, American footballs and even replica civil war uniforms.

Today the city manufactures hundreds of items. Sports companies such as Nike and Adidas make their soccer balls here. Dozens of kinds of musical instrument, and even surgical equipment, are made in Sialkot.

Naeem Qureshi, of the Sialkot chamber of commerce, told CNN’s Reza Sayeh that the city's exports are increasing, and are now worth $1.4 billion.

While Pakistan often makes headlines these days because of militant attacks and extremism, local manufacturers say security concerns are overblown. Pakistan has plenty of space, as well as cheap raw materials and labor. And local businesses say Sialkot is a perfect example of why it pays to invest in Pakistan and do business there.

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San Francisco based Cloudcade has announced it will invest $6 million to set up a game development studio in Lahore, Pakistan, according to Venturebeat.

The Lahore studio will be led by Ammar Zaeem, cofounder of Pakistan’s mobile game studio Caramel Tech which already has a team of 50 engineers.
The move is a big investment into Pakistan as a tech hub, and it shows how the game business is expanding around the globe.

Cloudcade:

Founded by Di Huang in 2013, Cloudcade is known for its popular multiplayer game "Shop Heroes" that pits players against each other in a competition to create the best shop they can. If a player can make a better store and perform more tasks than his or her rivals, he or she wins.

The game is available on the Apple iOS App Store, Google Play, Samsung Galaxy Store, Amazon, Kongregate, and Facebook. It is now also supported on the Apple Watch.

43.5% of Indians, the highest percentage in the world, say they do not want to have a neighbor of a different race, according to a Washington Post report based on World's Values Survey.

About Pakistan, the report says that "although the country has a number of factors that coincide with racial intolerance – sectarian violence, its location in the least-tolerant region of the world, low economic and human development indices – only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis objected to a neighbor of a different race. This would appear to suggest Pakistanis are more racially tolerant than even the Germans or the Dutch".

Housing Discrimination:

It appears that there is a small but militant minority in Pakistan that is highly intolerant, but the vast majority of people are tolerant. My own experience as a former Karachi-ite is that there is little or no race or religion based housing segregation, the kind that is rampant in India where Muslims are not welcome in most Hindu-dominated neigh…

The development of JF-17, a modern highly capable and relatively inexpensive fighter jet, is the crowning achievement to-date of the Pakistan-China defense production cooperation. It's being deployed by Pakistan Air Force with Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC). The latest version is capable of launching a variety of nuclear and conventional weapons ranging from smart bombs and air-launched cruise missile Raad to anti-ship missiles.

I am the Founder and President of PakAlumni Worldwide, a global social network for Pakistanis, South Asians and their friends. I also served as Chairman of the NEDians Convention 2007. In addition to being a South Asia watcher, an investor, business consultant and avid follower of the world financial markets, I have more than 25 years experience in the hi-tech industry. I have been on the faculties of Rutgers University and NED Engineering University and cofounded two high-tech startups, Cautella, Inc. and DynArray Corp and managed multi-million dollar P&Ls. I am a pioneer of the PC and mobile businesses and I have held senior management positions in hardware and software development of Intel’s microprocessor product line from 8086 to Pentium processors. My experience includes senior roles in marketing, engineering and business management. I was recognized as “Person of the Year” by PC Magazine for my contribution to 80386 program. I have an MS degree in Electrical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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